The Black church can play a role in improving health outcomes

MinnPost’s Daily Newsletter The latest on the politics and policy shaping Minnesota. Delivered straight to your inbox. Sunday Review | Catch up on our biggest stories from the past week. Delivered to your inbox Sunday mornings. Through The Balm in Gilead, Pernessa C. Seele pilots the Healthy Churches Roadmap Tour, which touched down on June 22 at the Capri Theater in north Minneapolis. In 1989, Pernessa C. Seele, who was working at Harlem Hospital, saw the fallout of the AIDS crisis all around her.  “Everyone in Harlem Hospital was dying of HIV. And nobody was coming,” remembered Seele. “The churches weren’t coming, the mamas and daddies weren’t coming.”  Seele does not remember what her official job title was at Harlem Hospital, only that it involved  “fill(ing) out some forms.” What ended up happening, however, was that Seele had time to speak with HIV positive patients at the hospital.  “These were people who were leaving (their physical lives behind), and they wanted someone to sit with them and talk with them,” said Seele.  Later, as Seele was praying, she came up with the Harlem Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS.  “It wasn’t just prayer, it was prayer and education,...